


Valkyrie

by Lady_in_Red



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst, Battlefield, F/M, Ficlet, Gen, Near Death Experiences, No Dialogue, The Long Night, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 20:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20364352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_in_Red/pseuds/Lady_in_Red
Summary: Lying on the battlefield in the frozen North, deep in the Long Night, Jaime judges his life while he waits to see which god comes to collect him.





	Valkyrie

**Author's Note:**

> This was largely written in 2015, found going through my WIP folder and polished up.

So many stars. Jaime had never noticed how bright they were, blinded by burning torches, burning swords. 

Swords clashed, men screamed. Dying. The battle moved on, away from him. Was he still holding his sword? Jaime tried to move his hand, but his bloody sleeve had frozen to the ground. Pain radiated down his arm, up from his side. His armor was so heavy, his body so cold.

He hadn't known cold could burn until he came north. It blistered Jaime's toes, blackened the tips of Brienne's fingers. North of Winterfell, Jaime had finally crawled into her furs one night, propriety be damned. Brienne had fallen asleep muttering about what her father would think if she was found frozen to death in Jaime Lannister's arms. 

That was before they knew what happened when you died in the heart of Winter. 

Jaime strained to hear the men still fighting. Shouted commands, screams for help, both meant live men, and the slim hope of victory. Wights didn't speak, an endless tide of empty blue eyes and grasping black hands. 

The only blue eyes Jaime wanted to see were Brienne’s, but she was with Tormund Giantsbane, guarding the gate in the Wall. They’d said their goodbyes, as they did before every battle. A jape or tease from him, a handful of words from her. Jaime couldn’t even remember what he’d said this time. Nothing he’d want her to remember him by. 

A jest about how well frostbite suited her was fine when Jaime returned to the barracks after a night’s fighting, crawled into bed beside Brienne, held her without any shame or fear of discovery. But Jaime wasn’t coming back this time. He knew that much. 

The men would burn him. If there were any men left. 

The stars blurred as a vast dragon wheeled overhead, green and gold against the night sky. Maybe they would just blast the dead with dragon fire, not bother with pyres. 

The dragon flew on, and darkness returned. 

Jaime drifted. 

Someone was calling his name. The dark retreated before a golden glow. His mother had found him at Riverrun once, he remembered that now. Perhaps Cersei had come for him here, unable to rest without him. 

With difficulty, Jaime turned his face toward that glow. A figure moved toward him, tall and wreathed in light. Not Cersei. Not his mother. Did the Stranger take everyone, or did the Warrior come to claim his own? Jaime had never paid much attention when the septons droned on. In his head he’d been practicing his footwork, his thrusts and parries. 

The Ironmen believed that mermaids took drowned reavers to the feast halls of the Drowned God. There were no such tales about the Stranger. The Seven’s final aspect was silent, hooded, neither man nor woman. 

This figure was swathed in black but carried a gleaming sword. To cut the string that bound his soul to this broken body? Or was that another god? The younger Stark girl spoke of many and one, as if she knew Death intimately. Perhaps she did. 

Death drifted through the battlefield, touching each corpse in turn. A soft word here and there reached Jaime’s ears, but he could not understand them. Would Jaime’s life be weighed and judged here? He had no doubt which way the scales would tip.

Death reached Jaime, blocking the starlight from his view, and knelt at his side. Soft words and warm hands touched him. He was so tired, the world beginning to fade and blur. Not black but blue. Not bright stars but deep seas. 

He had never feared death, but he wasn’t ready to go. So much he should have said, declarations long overdue, promises he’d never thought to make. His lips and tongue refused to form the words now. 

Too late for all that. He drifted, weightless, between light and darkness.

Jon Snow was wrong. There was something beyond death. Shadows and memory. Steam rising from water. The roar of a tournament crowd. The sweetness of a kiss. And every time he started to sink into the black, gentle hands pulled him back.

Ned Stark was there, critical as ever, and Catelyn Stark, restored to herself. The king he killed, the queens he’d failed, the boy he pushed. The judgment he richly deserved. The bear and the maiden, his brother, soldiers and smallfolk, crows and wildlings. The scales could never balance. He knew that.

Perhaps the Smith could reforge him, as Ice had become Oathkeeper and Widow’s Wail. Hammer his broken body into something of use. Then the Warrior might find him worthy. The kings he’d served never had. His father hadn’t. His sister. His children. The dead, the lost. Their voices rose from the deep. Whispers and jeers.  _ Kingslayer _ . Laughter. Screams. Tears and prayers.

The voices quieted until only one remained. The soft cadence of her words flowed over him even though their meaning escaped him. Her gentle hands drew him out of the dark. 

And Jaime opened his eyes in the light of dawn. 

  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
